by Nancy Thayer
Diane squinted, as if to see more clearly back into her memory. “My God!” she exclaimed. “The official who cut through all the red tape. Wow. He was handsome. Nice, too.”
“I gather it’s not his particular role in his government to help young American women change their flight schedules,” Jean said. “He knew who you were and wanted to see you.”
“Because I’m your daughter.”
“Yes.”
“So he’d been thinking of you through all those years. Mom, that’s really romantic. Are you going to see him again?”
Jean tried to maintain some degree of dignity. “Perhaps. I might go back to Moscow in the spring.” Then, surprising herself as much as her daughter, she continued, “Perhaps you could go with me. You’ve never been to Moscow, and we’ve never traveled together. It might be fun.”
“What a good idea!” Diane exclaimed, pleased.
“Would Jim mind if you went off without him?”
“I’m not sure he’d know if I went with you.” Diane rose to look out the front window, and Jean sensed dissatisfaction in her daughter’s face. “Jim’s getting to be a real old fogey, Mother. He really doesn’t see much past his work.”
“That’s bound to change,” Jean said soothingly.
“Maybe.” Diane shrugged and sank down on the sofa next to her mother. “Maybe not. In any case, I’d love to go to Moscow with you, no matter what Jim thinks, as long as everything’s settled with Arabesque. And of course, depending on how Julia is.”
“I can’t wait to see her.”
“I can’t wait, either,” Diane said, and suddenly she turned to her mother and blurted out, “Oh, Mother, I don’t know what to do!” Diane was actually wringing her hands. “If Julia were a little girl, I swear I’d spank her! She’s put us through such agony, and I’m still anxious about her. Imagine, trying to slit her wrists. Oh, it makes me ill to think of it.”
“But she’s all right. Sam’s with her. And she’s coming home today.”
“I know. But—getting married! At her age! Tossing away her entire future.”
“That wouldn’t be tossing away her entire future, Diane. It would only be living her life differently than you’d envisioned.”
Diane glared at Jean. She rose from the sofa and paced the room. “I should have known you’d side with Julia.”
“She is eighteen. She’s always been a good girl, intelligent, responsible. I’ve always admired her.”
“Do you admire her now? After all this?”
Jean hesitated, considering. She chose her words with care. “It’s possible that this was all she could see to do. Perhaps she felt boxed in. Trapped. Believe me, Diane, she’s not the first young woman to go against her parents’ wishes.”
Mother and daughter looked at each other levelly.
“I just don’t want her to get married so young,” Diane said.
“A lot of young women do,” Jean told her. Then, before Diane could protest again, she hurried on: “But perhaps I can help. I thought I’d ask her to go to Moscow with us. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if the three of us all went? We’ve never had a trip together, just the three of us. It would be something we’d always remember.”
“You could certainly ask her, but I don’t know if it will do any good. She’s so obsessed with Sam.”
“We’re all obsessed when we’re first in love,” Jean reminded Diane softly, but she saw that her words didn’t smooth the crease between her daughter’s eyebrows or lessen the pain in her eyes. Suddenly Jean felt as if she were standing on the heights of a mountain from which she could look down at all the world in its rich diversity, while her daughter was only halfway up the mountain, and from her vantage point she could see only dangers and shadows.
It’s always a surprise, it’s new each time, and don’t you see that’s as it should be? Those were the words Jean longed to say to her daughter, along with a jumble of other advice, for she knew Diane was entering a new phase of motherhood now when she would simply have to wait and watch and let Julia and Chase experience their own hardships and bear their own pain. Perhaps this was the most difficult phase of all. For here Jean sat in this really extravagantly beautiful house with her elegant daughter before her, and all Jean could see, feel, was the pain in her daughter’s eyes.
“I just want her to take a little more time,” Diane was saying. “She’s so awfully young.”
“I’ll ask her to come live with me,” Jean offered; she would do anything to help her daughter. “There’s a second bedroom in the condo. Julia could work. Or even attend a culinary arts school. There are several in the area.” She smiled, pleased with her suggestion.
“Cooking school!”
Jean bit back a sharp retort and quietly reminded her daughter, “When you were a young woman, your father hoped you’d go to law school. For him, in those times, that was fairly radical thinking. But you were his oldest child, and so bright.” Now there was impatience in her daughter’s eyes, and Jean feared they were headed for an argument, when the phone rang. Diane rushed into the kitchen.
Quickly she returned. “It’s for you, Mother. A man.”
Ignoring her daughter’s wicked grin, Jean hurried to the kitchen. “Hello?”
“Hello, Jean. I wanted to be sure you got there all right.”
The sound of Erich’s voice took her breath away, and for a moment she couldn’t reply. “How nice of you,” she said, at last. The connection wasn’t perfect, and Erich sounded miles away—as after all, he was. “Yes, I’m safely here.”
“How was your flight?”
“Long.” She was rewarded with the low, sexual rumble of his laugh.
“I’ve been thinking,” Erich said, “that even if you do come to Moscow next spring, I’d rather not wait until then to see you again. I could come to Washington in about a month, for official purposes. Could I see you then?”
“Why, yes, I suppose … Yes, of course you could. Erich, that would be wonderful.” If I don’t have a heart attack first, she thought, for there was a wild pounding in her chest.
“Good. Well, I’ll write to let you know when I’m coming.”
“Lovely. Erich—” Jean paused, then said, “Plan to stay as long as you can.”
For a moment the line hummed with a mutual and warm satisfaction.
“I will. Good-bye.”
“Thank you for calling. Good-bye.”
Jean hung up the phone and leaned against the wall. Her first clear thought was how glad she was that she’d moved. When Erich came to visit, she would be in her home, not in the house where she’d lived with Al and her family.
Thinking such thoughts, about her house, and her wardrobe, and whether or not to go on a diet, Jean wandered back into the living room and sat down by the fire.
“Who was that, Mother?” Diane asked, smirking.
“Erich Mellor. He just wanted to see how my trip was.”
“Oh, really?” Diane pressed, teasingly. “That’s the only reason he called?”
“Well, actually,” Jean admitted, “he said that he’s got to come to Washington next month on a business trip, and he’d like to—see me then.”
“Mother, look at you. You’re blushing.”
Jean smiled at her daughter, pleased by Diane’s teasing. Now Jean studied her daughter, thinking how lovely she was, and how much she looked as Jean had when Jean was Diane’s age.
“You can get that little mole on your neck removed,” Jean advised Diane. “They do it in the doctor’s office. It only takes a second, and it doesn’t hurt a bit.”
Diane flashed her mother an angry look. “I didn’t realize it was so noticeable!” She’d chosen a boatnecked emerald mohair sweater with gray silk-and-wool slacks this morning so that she’d look especially elegant for her mother. The sweater had cost a fortune. The pin just below the neckline, a gold twist with emeralds, was one of her newest designs. How like her mother to see a mole instead of the brooch.
“It’s not that
conspicuous,” Jean said placatingly. “I only noticed it because I had one just like it when I was your age. I had it taken off because it bothered me when I wore certain kinds of blouses. It’s nothing to worry about, you know.”
“I wasn’t worrying about it. Really, Mother, do you think I’m thinking about moles right now?”
“No, of course not, I don’t know why I even brought it up. I was just thinking how beautiful you are—”
But Diane was irritated, and she got up and began piling the coffee cups on the tray. “Coffee’s cold. I’ll get a new pot.” Chin high, Diane swept off into the kitchen.
Trust her mother to zoom in on any flaw, Diane thought, but as she moved around the kitchen she calmed down and admitted to herself that her sudden pique had been caused by something else. The phone call from a man had been for her mother, not herself. She hadn’t heard from Peter Frost for three days now, and she wondered if she’d ever hear from him again, and if so, what she’d do. Lucky Mother, her husband’s dead, so she doesn’t have to deal with a moral dilemma about seeing a lover! Then she leaned against the counter and shook her head and smiled to herself at her own irrationality.
She’d just started a fresh pot of coffee when she heard the front door open and slam.
Julia’s voice rang out from the living room: “Grandmother! What are you doing here?”
Diane forced herself to count to ten. She wanted to be reasonable, composed. She only got to six before hurtling down the hall.
Julia was on the sofa, hugging her grandmother. Her hair was clean and wavy, and her face shone. Diane’s heart leaped.
“Julia.”
As the young woman turned to face her mother, her expression darkened so dramatically that Diane felt sick with guilt and, at the same time, overcome with anger.
“Hi, Mom.”
Diane sank down on the sofa next to her daughter. “Show me your wrists.”
“Mom.”
Diane grabbed her daughter’s arms and turned them. Ordinary Band-Aids adhered just below the joint of the hand. Diane’s stomach clenched. She peeled a Band-Aid back. The cut was red, only an inch long, and placed toward the outer edge of Julia’s arm, so that it missed the radial artery and the deep, navy blue vein.
Julia had never seen her mother’s face turn quite so gray, so sunken with grief. All the radiance, all the boldness drained from Diane’s face. Her mother suddenly looked old, old enough to die.
“Mom, I’m so sorry,” Julia whispered, choking on her tears. “I didn’t mean to worry you. It was awful of me. I know that now. I was just so—I didn’t think of anyone else.”
Diane was still holding her daughter’s wrists in her hands, so tightly that she could feel the blood pulse. “Just tell me. Did you really want to die?”
“No!” Julia shook her head in exasperation. “I didn’t want to die. I didn’t mean to at all. I was just—Oh, I don’t know, Mom. I guess I went a little crazy.”
“Would you like to see a psychiatrist for a while? Or a counselor?”
“Mom!” Julia laughed. “No!” All at once her mother’s concern was annoying. She wrenched her arms free. “Give me a break. I don’t need a psychiatrist. I just needed out of that pressure cooker. And I need to be with Sam.”
“I hear you want to get married,” Jean interrupted, giving Diane a chance to compose herself.
“Oh, yes, Grandmother. I love Sam so much. And he loves me.”
“Where is he?”
“He went over to his parents’. We thought it would be better if I talked to Mom and Dad alone, first. I don’t mean alone without you, Grandmother. I’m glad you’re here.”
“If you married Sam, now, what would you do?” Jean asked.
“Well, he’d finish school. He wants to go on to graduate school. He’s in chemistry, so he’ll be able to get a good job eventually. I thought I’d get a job in Middletown.”
“Doing what?” Diane asked, even though by now she could guess.
“Working in a restaurant. Or catering.”
Diane stared at Julia without speaking.
“Before you start working, perhaps you could take a trip with me,” Jean suggested. “To Moscow.”
“Moscow?” Julia’s interest was piqued.
“Yes. A very old friend of mine has invited me to visit Moscow in the spring. I’ve asked your mother to join me, and I’d like you to come along, too.”
“Moscow. Wow. I’d love to go. But how do you have an old friend in Moscow?”
“Well, it’s complicated, Julia. It’s a long story.”
“Tell me!”
“Are you hungry, Julia?” Diane interrupted.
“Yeah, Mom, I am.”
“I’ll make some sandwiches,” Diane said and went back into the kitchen. She could hear the rise and fall of voices and laughter as her mother and daughter talked, but at this distance, she couldn’t tell whose voice was Jean’s, whose Julia’s. She leaned her head against a window, grateful for the cold press of glass and the impersonal, buffeting wind. A melancholy weighted her arms and slowed her movements. As had happened many times before, once she knew her child was truly safe, the adrenaline of fear left her, and she sagged with fatigue.
Forcing herself to move, she opened the refrigerator and took out the lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli. She’d make sandwiches and slice up fresh veggies to eat with a dip; Julia loved vegetables. Julia did look good. She had to admit it to herself—Julia was absolutely glowing with health. And yet only a few days ago, she had tried to slit her wrists! Diane knew it would be a long time, weeks, months, perhaps years, before she recovered from the agony of that news, before she could hear a phone ring without jumping, before she could trust her daughter to change her life in less dramatic ways.
Just then Julia came into the kitchen in a rush—“I’ve got to have some juice. I’m dying of thirst—” the young woman said, grabbing a carton from the refrigerator and a glass from the shelf, and Diane wanted to whack the glass from her daughter’s careless hand and grab her shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled. She wanted to scream, “Promise me you’ll never do that again! Promise me you’ll never again try to die!”
But she knew no one person could make such a promise for all time. And she saw how relaxed Julia was, every molecule of her body fairly beaming, and she remembered how her mother could still make her feel, how her mother had made her feel only minutes ago, so she said, “Julia, you look so beautiful.”
Julia responded with a look of pure joy. “Oh, thanks, Mom. I feel beautiful.” Then, spontaneously, she went up to Diane and, glass in one hand, carton in the other, embraced her in a clumsy hug. “I love you, Mom,” she said, then turned and hurried back to the living room and her grandmother.
Diane stood stunned. Could it be this easy? she wondered. Could she just accept her child? Or should she, must she remain on guard, forever nudging and nagging her daughter toward safety?
The phone rang. Diane picked it up, knowing in advance it would be Jim, calling to see if Julia had arrived.
“Diane? Peter Frost.”
“Oh. Hi.” Suddenly she was flushed with warmth.
“Did your daughter make it home this weekend?”
“Yes. She just arrived.”
“That’s good. But I don’t want to interrupt—”
“You’re not interrupting. My mother’s here, too. She got in from Helsinki yesterday. She and Julia are having a little heart-to-heart.” Her own heart was racing. “I’m just making lunch.”
“So everyone’s all right?”
“More than all right. Flourishing. Peter, my mother might start—seeing Erich Mellor again. And she’s planning a trip to Russia in the spring. She’s absolutely glowing.” And I am, too, Diane added silently. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, the better to soak in the sensation of Peter’s voice.
“Good for her. Well, look, I won’t keep you. But I’ve been thinking about you.”
“I’ve been t
hinking about you.”
For a long, delicious moment, she and Peter were connected in a silence so sexually rich it was like a kiss.
“I’d like to see you again. I can get back to Boston Tuesday. Could we have lunch?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll call you when my plane gets in about where to meet. Perhaps we could go somewhere on the coast.”
“There’s a restaurant I know in Marblehead …” Diane suggested.
“If the weather’s good, we can take a walk on the beach.”
She imagined them kissing at the ocean’s edge. “That would be perfect.”
“I’ll see you Tuesday, then.”
“Yes.”
“Good-bye, then.” He sounded reluctant to hang up.
She didn’t want to lose the connection. “Good-bye.”
She put the receiver down, then stood staring at the phone. She was going to have an affair, she realized, and she felt completely, utterly, blissfully glad. When she lifted her head, she saw how a cloud had parted, letting a shaft of sunlight streak through her kitchen, so that for a moment all the ordinary appliances of daily life looked magical. The wind gusted, clouds drifted back over the sun, and the kitchen was once again in shadow.
Turning on the overhead light, she set about making the sandwiches, washing and slicing the vegetables. She carried a tray into the living room and put it on the coffee table. Jean was telling Julia about her days as a young woman in Washington, about meeting Erich, and Julia was hanging on every word. Julia had Jean’s smile, Diane realized. Diane relaxed in her chair, looking at them, and for a while there was peace in the room.
This book is dedicated to my sister, Martha Foshee, and my brother-in-law, Chuck Foshee, with gratitude for their courage and great generosity, and to Phil Smith, who gave us hope and faith
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank several people for their help with this book: my mother, Jane Wright Patton; jewelers Sheila Bourgoin and Gary Trainor; my intelligence team—Josh Thayer, Sam Thayer, and Bret Stephens—and especially my husband, Charley Walters.
